Author Archives: John Parsons

Unfair’s Interior Fabrication

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We are using a very interesting new material for Unfair’s interior. It’s called Airex C70.

AIREX® C70 is a lightweight, closed cell foam for universal use in sandwich constructions. Its excellent stiffness and strength to weight ratio and high toughness make it suitable for a large variety of applications. The foam is ideally suited for statically and dynamically loaded structures and is compatible to all resin systems.

Our friend and collaborator Guillermo (William) Fonseca of 1Off Rides is working on the interior panels using this awesome material. It can be fabricated as though it were MDF (the standard material for speaker boxes). It cuts fine with woodworking tools, and can be glued or screwed together to make complex shapes. Once the shapes are glued/screwed together and all the panels sanded/finished to fit, you can use ordinary fiberglass mesh and resin to make the shapes permanent.

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Unfair Rear suspension and Spohn’s Del-Spheres

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When Art Morrison first approached us with the idea of the transforming / combination 3 and 4 link rear suspension, we loved the idea. And after I thought about it a bit longer, I called Matt Jones (their suspension engineer) at Morrison and told him to be sure and design the brackets of the new suspension to use Del-Spheres. Matt took some measurements and they were able to accommodate us.

As a result, Steve Spohn’s Del-Spheres are all over the rear suspension on Project Unfair, and for good reason. I first used Del-Spheres on my previous project (II Much) when the original rod ends started to wear (after a few hundred miles) and started to transmit NVH (noise, vibration, and harshness) into the car. I swapped the rod-ends to Del-Spheres and it greatly reduced the NVH, with no loss of accuracy or articulation.

Strictly speaking, the Del-Spheres don’t have quite as much misalignment capability as a rod-end, but for rear suspension linkage arms like Unfair’s combination 3 / 4 link, it offers plenty with no loss of strength. The main body of the Del-Sphere is forged steel, with a forged ball. The body and ball are separated by Delrin rings, and the body incorporates a rebuildable and grease-able design that allows for the quiet of rubber and the accuracy of steel.

We’re confident the car will have excellent handling and ride characteristics, as well as handle the 1200 hp the engine will put when we put the hammer down!

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Here’s the whole rear suspension in what Frank and I call “5-link” mode. 🙂 Note how the Del-Spheres are used on all the control arms except the Watts link.

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This is the road racing setup with a 3 link. For drag racing, the upper control arm in the middle is removed and replaced with two control arms on the side. The Del-Spheres provide the misalignment we need for turning the car on the 3 link setup, and the strength for 1200 hp launches on the 4 link setup.

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Here’s a closeup of the Del-Sphere, screwed into one of Unfair’s 4 link upper control arms.

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Taking off the pre-load adjuster shows the Delrin inserts and how they isolate the ball from housing.

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Here’s a complete disassembly. The forging line in the housing is visible.

Vintage Air a/c install in II Much

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I’ve been working on installing air conditioning in my car (named II Much, see more at www.iimuchfabrication.com) since late summer.  I figure by the time the weather is really cold, I’ll have working A/C.  🙂  

Warning: I’ll be giving lots of kudos to the folks at Vintage Air.  They are not a sponsor on the car, just so you know.  Rick Love has answered all my pestering questions, and has been awesome with his support, suggestions, and information.

Anyway, I’ve just about finished the install, which was a big deal on a finished car.  I had to remove the passenger fender and inner fenderwell, and tear out the entire dash.  Every single part on the install was a custom fit.  

I used Vintage Air’s new LS Front Runner (in anodized black, naturally).  Awesome engineering.  Installation was a snap, once I worked out how to fit my power steering pump in place: I had to use a remote reservoir, which meant I had to drill and tap the pump for the correct 10AN fitting.  I used a Tony Woodward reservoir and NIC fittings.  

The compressor requires a custom manifold to clear the inner fender.  The awesome folks at Vintage Air are building me a custom version based on my prototype.  It had to come out the back of the compressor, then up and over.  They are adding service ports to it as well.  

Installing the evaporator was even more difficult.  My roll cage meant that  I had to remove a lot of sheet metal in the interior (in the passenger side kick panel area). I had to move my FAST ECU and eDIST over and out of the way, and pull my stereo completely out of the car.  I’ll send the car back to 1OffRides (www.1Offrides.com) to have the stereo reinstalled behind the rear seat.  With all that out of the way, I was able to mount the evaporator under the dash to my roll cage tubes with the fan housing sticking inside the lower cowl to the point of almost touching the outer sheet metal.  I had to fab custom hardlines for the heater, and custom A/C bulkhead hose for the refrigerant.  I also had to use hardline for the drain to an AN bulkhead fitting in the lower firewall.

After that, I made my own bulkhead plate to angle the hoses out of the car at a reasonable angle.  From there, custom hardline heater hoses, drilled and tapped water pump, and custom refrigerant hoses.  (next blog): Aeroquip’s new EZClip hose and ends.  Good stuff!

I’m still wiring and working the final details (condenser will be here tomorrow) hopefully it’s a straightforward install.